FUNcube Dongle

Folks,

It transpires that we have been undercharging for Zone 2 and 3 shipping.

Zone 2 was undercharging because of a miscalculation on fuel surcharge by our Fedex agent when quoting to us. It is now £13.16 for Western EU and US/Canada (was £11.86).

Zone 3 was undercharging by £0.35 because I hadn’t plugged it into Paypal correctly: the advertised price was still correct.

All other pricing remains the same.

I apologise for the small increases here. The Fedex system does seem to work out a lot better: instead of packages going into black holes as they did with the postal system, with Fedex they phone me up.

Howard

Folks

Fedex doesn’t take PO Boxes for destination addresses in general, so if you ordered an FCD in the recent sale and provided a PO box could you please email me the true street address?

I have emailed those who have PO boxes, but in case you didn’t get me email, please get in touch using the email from the Paypal transaction.

Howard

Folks,

Due to the rather random nature of the times that international postal services are taking, and the amount of time both customers and I are taking chasing up Post Offices, I’ve decided to move to time definite services. Although it is more expensive, for most customers it will be only marginally more so.

The new service will be Fedex International Priority, and that is between one and three business days from dispatch depending where the destination is. I have worked hard to come up with the best rates I can. For example, Western Europe and North America, the price is GBP13.16.

There is no change to the UK arrangements or pricing, which will continue to use Royal Mail Special Delivery.

Below are a full set of rates.

Please take special care to select the correct zone!

Howard

Folks

I delivered enough parts for a further 500 FCDs to the assemblers today. The PCBs are due on Friday, and manufacture of the next batch will start next week.

Howard

Folks

The next sale will be on Wednesday 16 March 2011 at 22:00 UTC.

Many thanks, Howard

Folks

The next sale will be on Friday 4 March 2011 at 22:00 UTC.

I am sorry, we sold out.

Many thanks, Howard

Folks

A total of 144 units were sold and have been shipped today (Tuesday 22 Feb).

On Sunday at 22:00:00 I updated the inventory to 130 and Paypal had oversold to a total of 136 by 22:01:22. I placed another seven units on a minute or so later and Paypal oversold to eight, making a total of 144.

151 FUNcube Dongles after HPF Rework, ready for placing in enclosures.

18 Feb 13:30
Firmware programming and system test. I received 151 units on lunchtime on Friday. By Saturday lunchtime all 151 had been tested and 16 units with faults had been fixed.

19 Feb 13:00
The HPF rework and retest. I discovered that the LNA performance degradation and 1nF capacitor cracks are definitely caused by temperature fatigue. After the first ten units (four LNAs failed or degraded!), I dropped the tweezer temperature to 305 deg C (was 350 deg C) and the iron temp to 260 deg C (was 320 deg C) led to only one LNA replacement and no cap failures, previously I’d have had to change dozens of LNAs after rework. Only two units required other HPF fixes due to iron operator error.

20 Feb 19:00
Enclosure labeling.

21 Feb 10:00
Populating enclosures and retest. 100% success and no rework required!

Concurrenly, printing postage labels and packing slips.

21 Feb 17:00
Labeling envelopes.

22 Feb 10:00
Packing units into envelopes.

22 Feb 13:30
Trip to Post Office.

Board failure details…

xx7 – No USB connections to PCB from connector – fixed
xx3 – Cracked C14 – fixed
xx7 – Track broken near R14 DOUT line – fixed
xx2 – R4 one end not connecting – fixed
xx7 – PCB fault, across top side of PCB, short between 5V and ground, MCLK 3v3 over loaded, cleaned up PCB, fixed
xx2 – C1 missing – fixed
xx4 – 3V3D short to ground, PCB fault, fixed
xx9 – cannot program, resoldered USB connections, fixed
xx3 – 3V3D short to ground, PCB fault, fixed
xx5 – I/Q imbalance 10dB, replaced IC3, fixed
xx3 – very low RF, no signal, touched up north and east sides of IC3 (not much solder apparent), fixed
xx9 – Stuck in bootloader, replaced IC3 (not responding to I2C) – fixed
xx0 – no bootloader, D+ USB connector not connected, fixed
xx7 – very low RF, no signal, L16 open circuit, replaced, fixed
xx0 – IC2 incorrectly oriented, replaced, fixed

Pretty much from Friday lunchtime to Tuesday lunchtime it has been full-on 16 hour days, I am ready for a day off – and as it happens I am under strict orders to go away this weekend, and I don’t think I’ll be allowed to pack any dongle related stuff.

Howard

Folks

The next sale will be on Sunday 20 February 2011 at 22:00 UTC. Sorry folks, we have sold out again. I’ll let you know the next sale date very soon, should be in the next couple of weeks.

Please note that we may not be able to dispatch until Tuesday 22 February 2011 as this is due to be the largest batch to date, so logisitcally it will be difficult to make it happen for Monday.

This afternoon (Friday 18 Feb) I have just received the latest batch of assembled PCBs, and I am programming them up. Yields thus far are much better, 90% on a quick straw poll. Remember I will still be adding the high pass filter rework and retesting every unit.

Many thanks, Howard

Folks

Here is the latest FCD distribution.

Howard